Organizer and Chair: Dennis P. Patterson, Michigan State University
Discussant: Bradley Richardson, Ohio State University
Communities and Voting in Japan
Kenji Hayao, Boston College
Under Japan's previous system to elect members to the National Assembly's House of Representatives, two or more candidates from the same political party could compete for the same votes. Candidates would try to develop a "vertical" electoral base by concentrating on getting overwhelming support in a few communities within their districts. This paper argues that the voting distributions of candidates have become less "vertical." The number of candidates giving a majority of their vote to a single candidate has declined substantially, and the number of candidates who have relied on especially close ties to a few towns and villages has also declined.
Political Interests and the Rise of Unaffiliated Voters in Postwar Japan
Misa Nishikawa, University of Connecticut
Throughout the postwar period, the percentage of Japan's electorate that is not affiliated with a political party has risen dramatically. By the middle of the 1970s, over one-third of Japanese electors were not affiliated with a major political party. In recent years this trend has continued. In fact, unaffiliated electors are now over fifty percent of the electorate. Many explanations have been propounded to account for this. This paper proposes a new explanation, one that has to do with the interests of voters. This paper shows that unaffiliated voters have risen at different times because the major political parties do not represent their interests. This will be shown by comparing the issue positions of various party affiliates with those of unaffiliated electors.
Explaining the Results of Japan's 1995 Upper House Election
Toshio Nagahisa, PHP Research Institute
The results of the 1995 Upper House election in Japan reflect the changes that have been underway in Japan's postwar party system since the general election of 1993. At the same time, however, the results of this election indicate that other changes are underway as well. The LDP emerged as the top party, but the New Frontier Party also made great gains electorally. This paper seeks to explain these results and argues that one cannot understand these results without focusing on two essential factors. The first is the changes that have been occurring in the political system since the summer of 1993 when the LDP was pushed out of power for the first time since it was formed in 1955. The second involves the manner in which ballots are cast for Japan's Upper House, that is its dual system of multi-member districts and proportional representation. Considering both of these factors, this paper provides an explanation as to why the results turned out as they did.
Rationality and Candidate Strategies in Japan's Multi-Member Districts with SNTV
Eric Browne, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Dennis P. Patterson, Michigan State University
Before the election system was changed a short time ago, elected officials in Japan ran in multi-member districts with a single nontransferable vote (SNTV). An active and interesting scholarly debate has evolved over the impacts of this system. One issue that has been generally accepted involves the notion of how many candidates one would expect to be put up under these electoral rules. In the same way that a single member district system produces a two-party system, many have accepted that multi-member districts produce N + 1 candidates. The major proponent of this argument has also stated that this is an equilibrium that is produced by 'learning' on the part of voters and candidates and not rational candidate strategies. This paper examines this conclusion and reveals two problems. First, it shows that N + 1 is not always an equilibrium and that depending on the distribution of votes among candidates, one can see different equilibria, including N and N + 1. Secondly, the paper shows that these equilibria can be explained by rational candidate strategies and that the learning hypothesis is misinformed.